(I could say the same about Indiana Jones unless I'm really blown away by the revamp. It's gotta be darn good -- at least as good as The Last Crusade which is arguably better than Temple of Doom but still inferior to Raiders of the Lost Ark which completely spoiled me on action/adventure films for pretty much the rest of my life... unless someone actually makes an action/adventure film that I like better than Raiders. There's been some good ones since Raiders, yes, but not better, IMHO. I'm gonna be nice and throw them a bone and ignore the fact that IJ and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever existed to load the dice in favor of the people trying to relaunch that particular franchise!

(Ironically, there is a film series from Japan that I like better than Bond. Animated yes, but only about a decade younger than the Bond film series... and that's Lupin III. It's never been huge in the US but I hear it has some fairly strong cult status in parts of Europe. It's probably the only other continuing action/adventure series that I like some of those films about as much as the first three Indy films -- again, I'm loading the dice and NOT gonna mention the last Indy film.

(... Okay, I do like SOME of the Connery Bond films -- face it, he was the definitive Bond -- and a couple of the Roger Moore films but that's about it...)

I can honestly say that the height of the series for me was The Empire Strikes Back and that's pretty sad seeing as that film is going to turn forty years old not many years from now!

(NOTE: This does not detract from that movie. I STILL think it's an excellent film. I just don't think any of the other SW films made after Empire are as good. Empire was about as mature and close to a perfect SW film as has ever been made IN SPITE of the fact that it ended on a cliffhanger. That's one of the arguments I got into with a comic shop owner. He was a nice guy but he couldn't get his head around the fact that the film didn't have a closed ending... then again Star Wars itself clearly left the ending open enough for another movie even if Lucas felt pessimistic about its chances and settled enough things to end SW in case the first film bombed... Note that he didn't add the Episode IV: A New Hope tage until the film was re-released in 1981... At least according to one of about a billion different stories Lucas or film historians tell about the origins and making of the original trilogy.

(Not that puffing up history and telling fans a 'story' to make things more significant than they were is anything new... Gene Roddenberry was infamous for doing this with Star Trek...)

Yeah, SW-7 could still turn out to be a good film... in spite of the director... in spite of the fact that average age of the original cast is around 65 AND that the biggest news this past year was Harrison Ford breaking his leg during filming!

Oh man, get those films made before John Williams has to reappear as a Force ghost to compose and conduct the orchestra! The guy's at least as old as Shatner!

"Waiter, more champagne...and plenty of ice!"
- Randall/Time Bandits, 14 April 1912, 20 to midnight -- local time

I'd enjoy Temple of Doom MUCH more if Willie weren't in it, or if she had been a completely different character. The action set pieces are stellar, John Williams outdoes himself with the score, and Short Round is awesome, but it's very difficult for me to get past Ms. Spielberg. Not that I'm necessarily against her as an actress (I haven't seen anything else with her), but her part was very poorly conceived and written.

I saw Temple of Doom before seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, so I avoided feeling 'let down' by the movie (as many of my friends who'd seen Raiders first seemed to be). To me, both films were equally breathless in pacing and spectacle.

As Ben says, TOD could easily be chopped into a dozen or so 10-minute matinee serial episodes, each with a nifty 'cliffhanger' ending. It's a fun 1930s-styled pulp-adventure flick, through-and-through.

Willie Scott is likewise fashioned after a 1930s-style archetype: the screwball comedienne. Granted, Kate Capshaw is no Carole Lombard .. but her fast-talking, wise-cracking 'high-maintenance' character would not seem 'out-of-place' in many screwball romps from that period.

I would recommend the 1999 DreamWorks comedy The Love Letter if you'd like to see 'Ms. Spielberg' in a more-reserved -- but still quite funny & entertaining -- performance.

I don't know how EVERYONE suddenly jumped on George's synaptic fanboy-roulette spin of talking of Temple of Doom, but I will say the two things that forever cemented my opinion of it:
When the Lego Indiana Jones videogame first came out, each character had to have its own unique ability. Willie's, appropriately enough, according to the onscreen instructions, was "Willie's voice can break glass--Press square button to scream!"
If that alone did not sum up two hours of moronic goofy-misogynist pain from two directors going through bad divorces at the time, we only had to look at what happened two years after: The fact that Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz would go on to write AND direct Howard the Duck is all that this thread need say about the past skeletons in Lucasfilm's closet.

We have names to our pain, and accdg. to IMDB, they haven't worked since. Let us move on to happier thoughts of Disney/Lucasfilm's future, where Disney does not owe Lucas's old American Graffiti buddies a favor.

Ben wrote:Deffo. The opening 22 minutes is the best set of action pieces you'll find, and it's the closest in terms of apeing the true matinee cliffhanger style. It's just a rip-roaring adventure!

D'oh!

Didn't know you were still talking about Temple of Doom... I thought you meant the videogame!

Temple of Doom has its moments... It's honestly better than the last Indy movie for sure BUT I think Last Crusade was saved by the presence of Sean Connery. Even when I originally saw that film in high school, I didn't feel Last Crusade was as good as Raiders. (None of the sequels are, PERIOD.) For a while I actually thought TOD was better than LC but I changed my mind over the years and it's mainly because of Connery. The introduction of Henry Jones, Sr. really helped the chemistry in that film. I thought maybe Marion should have been brought back earlier, too, but I guess they didn't think the character fit either of the first two sequels or Karen Allen wasn't available for those films. Who knows? Most of the fans don't seem to like Willie Scott as much as Elsa or Marion (who's generally the favorite Indy female lead).

The opening stunt scenes in TOD were great as were the fights in the Temple itself and the mine car sequence. TOD probably has some of the best action music of the Indy series, period. It's been years since I've watched the whole film but it did stick with me (unlike the last film which I'm trying NOT to remember. Nuke the fridge, indeed!)

I'll be checking out Star Wars Celebration this weekend, though because I work on weekdays I'll miss JJ Abrams' panel on Thursday morning (heck of a way to open the festivities). I'll see about hitting Gareth Edwards' panel on Sunday if I have time, though I'll be primarily focused on the available photo ops and autographs, with Saturday I'll be trying to get in on the events for Rebels (which includes the premiere screening of the first two episodes from Season 2).

The weekend will also see the premiere screening of the 3D version of Revenge of the Sith on Friday with Ian McDiarmid introducing.

Last edited by Dan on April 12th, 2015, 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Lord Akiyama wrote:The weekend will also see the premiere screening of the 3D version of Revenge of the Sith on Friday with Ian McDiarmid introducing.

Now, the supreme test, to see whether Disney will let temptations conquer their fears, and actually release the 3D version in theaters or on disk, along with the other two 3D PT's. It's franchise greed vs. neurotic trauma, who will win?